This is a work of fiction. All characters and events reside solely in the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual people, alive or dead, is purely coincidental. All characters are eighteen years of age or older.
©2017, Annette Fields. No portion of this work can be reproduced in any way without prior written consent from the author with the exception for a fair use excerpt for review and editorial purposes.
This title is for adults only. It contains explicit sex acts, adult themes, and material that some folks may find offensive. Please keep out of reach of children.
Table of Contents
Big Bad Boss
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
EPILOGUE 1
EPILOGUE 2
Thank you!
Big Bad Boss
A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance
by Annette Fields
Author's Note: Thank you for choosing to read Big Bad Boss! I truly hope you enjoy it.
Get free books and more by joining the mailing list!
More by Annette Fields
Heavy Metal Heart
Beauty and the Bastard
PROLOGUE
FIVE YEARS EARLIER
LOGAN
“Is that all you got, fucking pussy?”
I smiled a gruesome, bloody grin like a predatory animal, and tried my best to ignore my mother’s sobs in the far corner of the room. My first priority was not letting them hurt her or Dad. Then I would think about getting us out of this shit.
If we were going to survive, I had to make the attackers focus on me.
“You’ve got the fists of a fucking toddler,” I spat, egging on the masked coward who’d been hitting me for the past thirty minutes.
His dark eyes narrowed behind the black face mask before he took slow, deliberate steps to the kitchen counter. He picked up a heavy metal wrench, its jaws gleaming under the light like a calculated, evil smile.
“No, please don’t hurt my son!” my mother wailed.
“Come get it, pussy,” I snarled, tensing my muscles and bracing myself for impact.
Clang!
The wrench made a metallic sound as it connected with my brow bone and split open the thin layer of skin there. Stars and dark spots clouded my vision while blood poured into my eye from my latest of many open wounds.
“When are you gonna learn to shut the fuck up?” my attacker demanded, trying to sound tough but his voice trembled. This wasn’t his usual line of work. He wasn’t cut out for this shit.
“How much did Charlie pay you fucking chumps?” I asked calmly, spitting another clump of blood from my split lip.
“What’s it to you, asshole?”
“‘Cause I know him better than anyone. And I know for a fact that he’s gonna cheat you. He always does.” I nodded my head at my parents, tied to chairs at the opposite end of the kitchen. My mom sobbed openly while unable to keep her eyes from me. Dad just looked sullen and defeated, staring down at his shoes and saying nothing.
“You’re holding an elderly couple hostage for no reason. And you throw punches at his old business partner while he’s also tied up, which is just the cowardly thing old Charlie would order.”
“We don’t know anyone named Charlie, so shut the fuck up,” said my attacker’s partner, who was apparently the brains of the two.
But the one who hit me with his weak pussy fists while my hands were tied behind my back got that look in his eyes. Doubt. Regret.
“Our employer isn’t important. You’re supposed to pay up to save them,” he said, jerking his head at my parents.
I smiled even wider through the blood in my mouth.
I had him. And he would pay.
“Oh, am I?” I said innocently.
“Yeah, that’s how these hostage situations work, dumbass.”
“Well, you’re not getting shit from me.”
With a final twitch of my shoulder, I slipped free of the rope binding me to the chair but kept my wrists together behind me. Neither of them noticed.
“You’re paying up or the old lady is gonna get it.”
“Aah!” my mom cried out as the second man roughly jerked her head back by her hair and pressed his gun to her temple. It made me flinch so badly I almost revealed that my arms were freed.
Hang in there, Ma, I thought desperately. They’re bluffing. You know I won’t let them hurt you.
“Did either of you two geniuses bother to ask why Charlie is going after me?”
I tried to stay as calm and collected as possible, but my blood boiled underneath my skin and adrenaline pumped through me like a potent drug.
More blood was about to be painted on the floor and it wasn’t going to be mine.
“We just do the job so for the last time, shut the fuck up.”
“Logan, please,” Mom sobbed. “Give them whatever they want!”
“You two gentlemen are about to be out of a job.” I stood from the chair while everyone in the room stared blankly at me. “Because I’m not giving you shit and your boss is a broke, spineless motherfucker who is going to leave you two fucks high and dry.” I clenched my fists at my side, every muscle in my body tense and on high alert. “And you’re going to have some giant fucking medical bills when I’m done.”
The guy with the wrench came at me first.
He opened his arm wide to swing, leaving plenty of room for my fist in his gut. I put all my weight into my uppercut to his soft belly.
The wrench dropped with a metallic clatter on the ground as he doubled over, both in surprise and in pain. I delivered another swift punch to his jaw and he was on the ground.
The whole thing happened within three seconds but it was like time slowed down for me. My anger and my instinct to protect my loved ones made me both accurate and ruthless.
I took a moment to rub coagulated blood off my eyelid, clearing my sight before I unleashed everything I’d been holding back.
Roaring like an animal, I grabbed the masked pussy’s shirt to slam his head into the ground already pooling with his blood. With my other hand, I hit him again and again like how he should have been hitting me.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack.
“This is how you throw a fucking punch, you coward motherfucker!” I yelled, apparently to the man who was likely unconscious before he hit the ground.
But in my blood-soaked vision, I was really yelling at Charlie. The real coward who sent these dumb fucks in his place because he wasn’t man enough to face me himself.
My only regret in life was making him my business partner back in college. Drained of blood and oxygen, my brain encountered a flashback to those days.
Me, hunched over the computer with piles of coffee cups, dog-eared books and scribbled notes surrounding me, watching the stock market like it was my day job. Him, hungover in bed with a h
ooker he bought with my money.
I slaved away for years, learning everything I could about investing to make our first million. Turning money into more money was my talent, passion, and calling. He spent it all on hookers, drugs, and bachelor pads. The latter which he couldn’t pay the mortgage on because of the former and so ended up living with me.
I wised up by the time I made my first billion. I bought him out at a more than generous 50% and rode off into the sunset to do things my way. He threw a tantrum like I expected he would. But that fucker was slimier than I thought.
I knew he didn’t keep his hands 100% clean but I had no idea he’d stoop so low as to hire two thugs to threaten my family.
Years ago I thought my wealth would help my family. Really, that was the only reason why I focused on earning so much. But it only brought them fear and pain. I could never forgive myself for inflicting this upon them.
“Logan, stop!”
My mom’s plea jolted me out of my hazy memory.
Blood pooled all around me in a sea of red. The man’s mask slipped off halfway in my furious retaliation and his visible face looked like raw hamburger meat.
Throbbing pain radiated through my hands. I turned them over to see that my knuckles were split open and bleeding from hitting him so hard.
He didn’t move. If he was breathing, I couldn’t tell.
I looked up to my parents, slowly regaining focus of my surroundings.
We were in their kitchen. The modest mobile home where I grew up. I flew here as fast as I could from California because of a cryptic text message that I knew was from Charlie. It had read:
A happy family is but an earlier heaven :)
Mom and Dad never answered their phones when I called during the entire flight over. The moment I walked in through the door, they were already tied up. Someone got me with a taser and tied me up too. Until I got free, I let them have their fun with me.
But play time was over. And the guy laying on the ground was very likely dead.
The other one, who held a gun to my mother’s head, stood on the other side of the kitchen with his hands in the air.
“I’ll let them go, I swear!” he whimpered in a high-pitched voice. “I don’t want anything from you! Just please don’t touch me! I got a family too!”
I watched him suspiciously as I caught my breath, my bloodlust sated and subsiding. He appeared to be crying behind his mask. As I stepped forward, he whimpered and cowered in a corner.
“I’ll free them,” I said. “I assume you have a phone. Call an ambulance for your buddy.”
He just stood there, clearly in shock as I gently undid my mother’s ties and then my dad’s.
“You better hurry or he’s a dead man,” I barked.
If he isn’t dead already.
“What do I tell them?” he shrieked.
“Tell ‘em the truth.”
I knew it didn’t bode well for me if the guy was dead. But unlike Charlie, I was prepared to accept the consequences of my actions.
“Oh Logan, you’re so bloody,” my mom said as she reached up to wipe my split open eyebrow with a napkin.
“I’ll be alright, Ma,” I replied, gently moving her hand away. “You two should get checked out by medical staff.”
Sirens blared from down the road mere minutes later. I washed my hands of the blood as best I could while the still nameless attacker tried to slow the bleeding of his friend on the floor.
Whatever the outcome, I hoped Charlie got the message loud and clear.
Don’t ever fuck with my family. You’re as good as dead too now, motherfucker. Whether I’m behind bars or out there, you will not live this down.
I tended to my parents and answered police questions honestly as various paramedics and emergency response teams created a flurry of commotion inside my parents’ trailer. Surprisingly, they did not take me away in handcuffs. Only the masked man got put in the back of the squad car and his bloody friend left on a stretcher.
But I did get a warning that manslaughter or assault charges could be brought against me by the family. Fine with me.
My focus turned to what really mattered.
“I’m getting you two out of here,” I said to my parents the moment we were alone again. “I’m building you a house that’s secure and upgraded.”
“Don’t be silly, Logan. This is our home,” Dad insisted gruffly.
“It’s not safe here,” I argued. “Your neighbors already know you were targeted for something. What if I can’t make it here in time?”
“He’s right,” my mom said softly. “This place is falling apart, anyway.”
“Thank you, that’s only what I’ve been trying to say for years now.”
Dad grunted his approval after seeing he was outnumbered. “Just nothing too fancy,” he admonished.
I smiled through my sore, swollen mouth. “Fine. But just a little fancy. And maybe with some land?”
They seemed to approve that idea.
I got on the phone with Christian as soon as my parents went to bed, exhausted from the ordeal they’d been through. But I wasn’t done yet.
We had to bring this to Charlie’s front door and make him shit his pants.
My family went through a scare that no one should have to. It would take the rest of their lives to recover from this. All because of a poor decision I made.
Charlie was the first and last person outside of my family that I trusted with my wealth. Never again would I make that mistake.
CHAPTER 1
AUBREY
"Aubrey! I need your help!"
I pulled my face away from the cloud of steam rising from the hot metal tank and looked in the direction the voice calling for me.
Bella leaned out the side door of the tasting room, her perfectly drawn brows knitted with tension and her skinny arm waving to catch my attention.
"What's up?" I hollered, pulling away the stubborn strands of red hair clinging to my face with sweat.
"I need help changing another keg!"
"Be right there!" I yelled back but grumbled my complaint to myself as I descended the metal stairs of the brew deck.
Goddamn it, Bella.
Changing kegs was Bartending 101. I could do it with my eyes closed. Not only was it easy, it was one of the first things you learned on the job. Sure, sometimes you needed extra muscle to help move it into place but this was a brewery. We had plenty of extra muscle to spare.
Hell, Bella could just wink and smile at one of the customers and they'd scramble to lend a helping hand.
I didn't dislike the girl, but she didn't seem to have the chops for running a busy tasting room. She made a good effort but seemed utterly clueless when it came to beer knowledge. Maybe Marty just didn't have her trained properly after I transferred into the brewery, but she was supermodel hot and had a bubbly personality so at least the customers kept coming back.
Me? I couldn’t be more opposite.
I love everything about beer and it showed on me. I'm curvy, strong, and Irish as hell with red hair, freckles, and green eyes. My love for drinking must’ve been in my blood. I've been told I'm cute but I definitely don't shine when standing next to girls like Bella.
The best day of my life was when Marty told me I'd no longer be a bartender and could finally start brewing. Finally, I could get away from the creepy men and stupid beer questions and practice my artistry and true passion.
I could finally do what I loved, what I was meant to do.
"Here, I'll watch you change it. I'm sure you got the hang of it now," I said with a friendly smile to Bella. This was at least the third time I showed her. She'd have to learn eventually.
Her cherry red lips pouted as I opened the door to the refrigerator where rows of beer kegs stood lining the walls like sentries.
"Last time I tried, I got beer all over my new shirt," she whined as we made our way through the icy box. "And I already ruined a pair of shoes."
"Yeah, it's part of the work
environment," I said, trying to sound sympathetic. "You might not want to wear your nicest clothes to work."
"But then I'll lose money on tips!" she protested.
I held my tongue as I walked her through changing the keg for the fourth time.
The only negative about going from bartender to brewer for me was the loss in pay. My hourly wage increased but I no longer took home tax-free, cash tips at the end of every night.
Yeah, I needed more complex skills and knowledge but hey, at least my looks didn't matter. There’s a running joke about how brewers could never be the faces of their company, no matter how good their product is. How's that for fair? And with Bella being literally an 11 out of 10, I didn't doubt she took home over three times as much money as me.
And there I was, showing her how to do her job for the fourth time.
But my closet was full of jeans and T-shirts and I knew how to stick to a budget. I would take a pay cut any day of the week if it meant I was happy at my job.
"Yay, we did it!" Bella cheered as we successfully locked the beer line onto the fresh keg.
"Now, remember what to do up front?" I asked her. "Hold a pitcher under the tap to clear all the old beer out of the line."
"Yeah! Um, do you think you could do it for me? You're already covered in beer, so..."
Are you fucking kidding me.
"Sure," I said through gritted teeth. It took all my resolve to stop my eyes from rolling.
Great. Now all the customers could leer at the token female brewer. Sweaty, dirty, with spent grains in my hair and the sludgy mixture of hops and yeast all over my pants. I'd probably even get dragged into a conversation by some hipster about our barrel aged Belgian beers.
I really had to stop being so nice sometimes.
Reluctantly I followed Bella through the side door to the tasting room which put us directly behind the bar. Refusing to make eye contact with anyone, I grabbed a pitcher on the counter and held it under the tap before opening the faucet and letting the beer flow.
Big Bad Boss: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance Page 1
